Danation: A mammoth task

[SteppingRazor]

http://southflorida.metromix.com/politics/article/danation-a-mammoth-task/313342/content


Sen. Barack Obama faces an uphill battle now that Democratic voters have given him a big, white elephant.
By Dan Sweeney
February 20, 2008


With an eight-for-eight post-Super Tuesday run, Sen. Barack Obama is the front-runner in the Democratic presidential campaign. Hell, it’ll be 10-for-10 by the time you read this, as Obama will pick up Wisconsin and Hawaii before this hits the racks Wednesday. But if this primary has taught us anything, it’s that Obama’s campaign is now surely doomed to failure and disgrace.

Front-runner status in the 2008 primary has become a horrific white elephant, the blood of dead campaigns smeared across its tusks. Rudy Giuliani was a front-runner once. So were Mitt Romney and Sen. Hillary Clinton. And the old white elephant metaphor is even more apt than usual here.

<snip>

Last week, former President Bill Clinton claimed his wife has been the underdog since she came in third place in Iowa. At the same time, Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, claimed the only way Hillary Clinton could overcome Obama’s lead in pledged delegates after the man’s gorgeous string of victories throughout February would be if she won the rest of the contests by 25 to 30 points. Fearing the jinx, the campaign has released all statements since then through political consultant David Axelrod, who was largely responsible for the online-media blitz that gave birth to the Illinois senator’s candidacy. Plouffe has not been heard from in days. His family begins to grow worried.Front-runner status isn’t merely a white elephant, fuck no. It is the kiss of sweet death. And yet … and yet …

Plouffe has a point. The only way Clinton can come back is by overtaking Obama in superdelegates if neither side has the requisite 2,025 total delegates by the convention in August. If she wins in Texas and Ohio March 4, that’s a very real possibility. There are only two contests between March 4 and the next big deal, Pennsylvania, on April 22, in which, like Texas and Ohio, Clinton is still ahead in the polls. Of those two primaries, Obama has a sure-thing win in Mississippi, but the closed primary in Wyoming could go Clinton. And after Pennsylvania, the combination of closed and open primaries seems as if it could keep this thing close.

<snip>

[lapfog_1]

1. The logic here fails

There are only three left in the race for President. All three have been or are the front runners at one point. One of them is going to win. Therefore, a front runner is going to win.

I'd love to have that "white elephant" tied around my neck.

[SteppingRazor]

3. Well, it's more just a conceit to get to the meat of the argument...

that at this point, Hillary Clinton's best hope for a win is with superdelegates.

[lapfog_1]

6. Well, I think no matter what

if neither of them drop out... they BOTH need a win in the super delegates.

Obama isn't going to win the rest of the primaries by enough (68% of the vote) to secure the nomination with just the super delegates he has now plus the pledged delegates. And Hillary has to win 65 percent of the vote in her competitive states just to pull even in total delegates with Obama. It's an almost mathematical impossibility for her to win enough delegates without more supers to win the nomination.

So it will all come down to FL and MI and the supers.

And should Obama have more pledged delegates but lose the supers and the nomination to Hillary... very bad things will happen.

Should Hillary overtake Obama in pledged delegates and OBAMA wins the nomination by using the supers... very bad things will happen.

So the supers have to be careful here.

[jkshaw]

2. What's danation?

Do you mean damnation? Donation?

[SteppingRazor]

4. It's the name of the column.

From Damnation, but lose the "m." It's a play on the writer's name.

[jkshaw]

5. Thanks

[Dumak]

7. So being front-runner is the kiss of death?

If it's the kiss of death now for Obama, why wasn't it the kiss of death for Clinton when she was front-runner?

[SteppingRazor]

8. Oy ... last time I try to post a funny editorial.

It's not really, see, it's a writer's conceit used to carry the story through to a discussion of the superdelegates.